THOMAS TASCHINGER: Main obstacle to balanced budget is 'we the people'

By Thomas Taschinger

Published 1:00 am, Sunday, November 21, 2010

Yet another blue-ribbon panel has laid out an honest plan for balancing the federal budget and chipping away at the scary mountain of debt we have built up. It is asking lawmakers to engage in an "adult conversation."

Good luck. My guess is that its sensible recommendations will be ignored like all the others. And because of that, it's hard to be optimistic about the nation's future.

Too many voters have become conditioned to view themselves as entitlement groups. They want their slice of the pie, and often more than they deserve.

They either don't know or don't care what their demands do to the federal budget - or the next generation. They want their goodies now.

Sacrifice? Restraint? Sorry, those are old-fashioned concepts. If some other sucker wants to back away from the trough, let him. But don't ask them pay more taxes or accept fewer benefits.

Much is being made of the determination by the congressional winners on Nov. 2 to cut spending. Republicans vow that they've learned their lesson and won't repeat the mistakes their party made during the second Bush administration. They're pledging to cut earmarks and take on the bureaucracy.

Great. The new spirit is exactly what Congress requires. But this nation would need 20 or 30 years of that focus to get the budget in balance, keep it there and start paying down the accumulated trillions of debt in a serious way.

It is almost inconceivable that Congress could maintain that discipline over dozens of election cycles. Either the winners get co-opted and start shoveling pork back to their home districts, or the people who elected them get tired of being told "no."

Meanwhile, the national news media is filled with sob stories about some farmer who got a smaller subsidy not to grow corn, or some bureaucrat who was laid off and couldn't find a similar job in the private sector.

Even in the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression, federal workers have continued to get raises and snail mail is delivered six days a week. Electric cars and ethanol plants get absurd subsidies. Billions upon billions are planned for space exploration and high-speed rail corridors.

Jobless benefits have been extended to an unbelievable 99 weeks. Now that some unemployed people are about to come to the end of that line - they're being called "99ers," with great sympathy - Congress is thinking about tacking on even more weeks.

When the lack of inflation eliminated the need for a cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security recipients, seniors clamored for one anyway. Congress responded with plans for $250 payments to 54 million recipients. The bill is called, without shame, "The Seniors Protection Act of 2010."

Does any of that sound like a nation ready to bite the bullet and face reality? I didn't think so.